A Long Belated Update

I want to start out by saying that I have by no means been neglecting the world of thesis development; it’s just taken a while to get back into the thick of it and posting updates. A lot has happened since my last post from way back when. This post is intended to highlight some what has happened since then with a follow up on my data collection and insights right after.

To begin, since this past summer I’ve been acting as a diligent researcher and community advocate. One of the initial sections of my thesis work was focused on understanding how design and business tools could be used to help entrepreneurs in the local community that was JETPACK. Since then, we (myself and my partners at Volta) started testing the toolkit with startups and established businesses where it became a bit hit (and insight!) which helped re-scope the direction of my thesis work. While at it’s core it still looking to understand the local startup community and its network, the final output of the work now focuses on using tools as a means of helping to guide groups into this community of practice that is entrepreneurship. There will be more posts to follow on what JETPACK is and its development soon to follow!

Now for the next key point: understanding Savannah’s startup ecosystem. This has also been an ongoing element of exploration since this past spring. Through a variety of different class projects and primary research I have started a visual network map of the key assets and organizations that exist in Savannah that comprise its startup community. The next major post will actually be about publishing that data and getting it out into the community. Naturally it will be incomplete and my goal is to get the community involved to help make it grow.

So where does all of this leave me in the writing side of things? It puts me in a really nice place actually. Over the next few weeks I will be wrapping up my primary research while also setting up a new push to put the data up here and other places. I’ve been steadily bouncing around and working with my thesis chair to start the writing itself. Surprisingly I find it quite a bit fun although challenging.